Christopher Carlson

Name: Christopher Carlson

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Grade: 12

School: Bayview High School

Hobbies and Interests: Video games, writing, firearms, acting, dancing, singing

Appearance: Chris stands at 6’4, broad-shouldered, though not particularly muscled (his arms, in particular, are slightly bony), but with very large calf muscles. His dark brown hair is cut short, with sideburns halfway down his ears and the back slightly below them. His hair is naturally curly, and when not held in place with mousse or gel (which he often does when going out), it will start to curl and stick out on the sides. He usually has a neutral expression on his face, which is fairly handsome, but not particularly impressive. He has some acne problems, though he tries to keep his zits in check, and very light freckling. His eyes are a cool blue-gray, and can easily change between piercing and warm when his mood is appropriate. His face and torso are quite pale, due to his indoors lifestyle, but the tops of his forearms and legs are a nice tan. His left eye is slightly smaller than the right, though not noticeable unless one looks closely, and his right leg from the knee-down is slightly twisted to the right.

Chris prefers to wear XL-size shirts, though they hang three inches or so below his belt, and perfectly-fitted jeans, as well as silver-framed glasses. He has about half-a-dozen show shirts from the different plays he's been involved in. During the senior trip, he was wearing light blue jeans with a single hole just below the right pocket, a purple and gold show shirt from Once Upon a Mattress with the cast and crew list on the back, glasses, and white size 13 tennis shoes.

Biography: Chris was born in Ontario to a New Jersey father and a Detroit mother. His parents moved to Toronto after their marrige while she was living in Minnesota (he was visiting on a trip), moving into a house in Guelph where he had wanted to live. Her father had always been suspicious of that man who seduced his daughter at the club, and his suspicions were quite correct. The charming, good-humored man was a violent drunk. It didn’t take long after the birth of their son in May of 1991 for his façade to drop. His mother, who was a rather tough woman in her own right, simply beat him back and locked him in the basement to sober up. However, his behavior only worsened.

One night, it went too far. During a visit to Chris’s father’s parents in his hometown of Summit, New Jersey, he arrived home at midnight, drunk as can be, looking for the car keys to go out driving. Knowing he would likely get himself in a wreck on the mountain roads, she had been sleeping with the keys under her pillow. In a fit of rage, he began strangling and beating her. His father stumbled in, and she forced him to call the local police as she kept from getting killed. He finally gave up and attempted to strangle the 2-year-old Chris to death, stomping on his leg and causing Chris' right tibia to dislocate. As she pulled him away from the crib, the police arrived and subdued the enraged man. He attempted to claim that he was attacking her in self-defense, but part of his wife’s plan was to never harm him. When the police saw him without a scratch and her bleeding and bruised, he was immediately taken into custody.

Unfortunately, his family was very wealthy, and had considerable influence in the town, including the police. Chris’ father was quickly bailed out of jail, and the ensuing custody battle never happened. When they returned to Guelph, Chris’ mother knew what she had to do. She packed up everything she could into a rented U-Haul van and took off with baby Chris, driving it herself all the way down to Minnesota to her parents’ house. She filed for divorce soon after, and she was officially free of him. He eventually died of liver disease in February of 2007, living in a small town in New Brunswick.

Chris’s mother and grandparents raised him as well as they could. They maintained an upper-middle-class lifestyle through the three sources of income. His mother was a math expert, and could do accounting far better than most of her co-workers. This allowed her much freedom in determining her salary and working hours, challenging her bosses with a ferocity that would have gotten others fired, simply because they knew that if she left, the office would lose massive amounts of productivity and many high-profile clients. Chris’ grandmother worked at a local Wal-Mart, and his grandfather stayed at home to watch the young Chris.

Chris attended a Lutheran preschool at the age of four, and later attended elementary school. His grades were good, though he very quickly displayed, much as his mother had, a distinct sense of right and wrong, leading to many altercations with bullies, his biggest being a fight with a football player and his boy scout friend right on his front lawn, which he won through very dirty fighting (biting, kicking in the crotch, etc.). He was quite well-spoken for his age as well, having begun speaking in short sentences at the age of two-and-a-half. He developed his trait for odd habits and tics as well, such as humming under his breath and exhaling for no good reason, which sometimes gave him the appearance of “weird“ or “creepy“. He began reading intensly at the age of three, and by elementary school he was bringing some kind of book, be it a Harry Potter novel or a video game magazine, to school and reading whenever he could, expanding his vocabulary.

When he was two, he also developed his love for video games. His grandfather brought him to a nearby arcade/fair he frequented and showed him a racing game. When Chris found out he could actually control the cars on TV, he was hooked. Soon his mother bought him a Super Nintendo and a few Mario games, which he played endlessly. In later years, he would begin playing violent games almost exclusively, such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. This led to his interest in firearms, from pocket pistols to battleship cannons. He has knowledge of just about every firearm category under the sun and is quite good at identifying them from close examination. He has a good knowledge of how firearms work, including learning how to properly load, fire, and care for them, having done plenty of research to prepare for when he would finally get to handle a gun of his own. He's never actually fired a real weapon before, other than a BB rifle he likes to practice with.

In middle school, he discovered his biggest love: drama. He took the class on a whim in 7th grade and almost immediately fell in love with the stage. He was one of the best actors in the class, and demonstrated his talent for improv and scriptwriting when he developed high-quality skits and pantomime routines.

High school was a big change for him. In 9th grade, his birth came to haunt him. Chris had never gotten his leg properly fixed after his father's assault. Originally, this hadn’t been much of a problem, but when he began running a mile weekly for his personal fitness class, he found out just how hard it was for him to go long distances. His leg would often be sore by the end of the run, as walking on a twisted bone for so many years caused too much stress on the leg. One day, he nearly collapsed while getting into the shower, as he got a massive pain in his leg that took a week to properly fix. He's learned since then not to over-exert himself. He was also diagnosed with mild asthma, and his lung capacity is lower than average and leaves him out of breath quickly.

He also joined Drama Club this year. His first participation was in the spring, running lights for Oklahoma!. He loved being around fellow actors and techies, never really meshing with any group as well as them. As he spent more time around the female-dominated club, he began to feel that he could get along with girls much better than guys, and began hanging around girls more and more. Eventually, almost all of his close friends were female. In 10th grade, he performed in Grease in the ensemble, and he found that he enjoyed singing and dancing as well. He joined Bayview's Dance Club the next year, honing his dancing skills. At the same time, he began teaching himself to sing better, and plans on joining a band at some point. He's had to teach himself proper breathing to keep his bad lungs from becoming too much of an issue.

As of his senior year, life has been good. He acted in 5 shows and did tech work for another 5, his biggest role being Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream. One day in January of his junior year, he met the love of his life: Kelly Cowart. Kelly was a freshman, three years younger than him, but he never loved any girl more than her. They met by complete accident at a Rock Band competition at a video game convention, and became best friends within a month. They grew closer and closer, until finally he asked her out with the encouragement of Sarah Atwell, an aquaintence of his. They were a perfect couple, and as of the senior trip were dating for 9 months.

Personality-wise, Chris is an oddball. His constant neutral expression, rarely smiling except in the presence of friends, and especially ones in Drama Club, tends to put people off. His dance training has made his movements more graceful and fluid than they were before, and he's easily able to maneuver around obstacles and through crowds. He’s also got a massive ego, and has no problems admitting it, which has led him to be quite arrogant at times, especially with people he dislikes. Unfortunately for him, his voice is usually a constant monotone, except when acting. When coupled with his rather threatening neutral expression, it can be difficult to ascertain his emotions without paying attention to body language. His inability to keep his mouth shut when he feels a need to speak up gives his a reputation for being argumentative, especially as his sarcasm and bluntness sometimes leads to him accidently insulting his close friends. He's quite intelligent, but insufferably lazy and easily distracted by anything more entertaining than his current task.

Advantages: Chris' physical condition is pretty much average, though he does have a height advantage over most of his classmates. He's a very dirty fighter, and focuses on winning above all else. He has no qualms about biting, scratching, gouging, and breaking bones to disable his opponent. He's been playing bloody and gory video games for many years, and is somewhat desensitized to violence. He's knowledgeable about many firearms and understands how to work them, and his constant practice with his air rifle gives him fairly good accuracy. He always tries to stay calm and keep his emotions in check when under stress. His dance training has made him highly aware of the position of his body and he's good at moving around obstacles, as well as strengthening his leg muscles.

Disadvantages: His biggest disadvantages are his leg and lungs. He can't run far or put his weight on his bad leg for too long before it starts hurting, and he ends up out of breath after only a short sprint. While his legs are strong, his upper-body strength is poor and he can barely support himself in a hanging position, let along pull himself up with just his arms. He's not very popular outside of drama, giving him few allies, and he can sometimes be a bit unaccepting of other input due to his ego. Because he's friends with so many girls, he has difficulty thinking about harm coming to them, and may have problems killing them, as well as acting rashly if he sees one (especially a friend) harmed. Also, he has bad vision more than ten feet away without his glasses, enough to have difficulty seeing details and identifying people.

Designated Number: Male student no. 52

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Designated Weapon: Brass knuckles

Conclusion: Wonderful, another chivalrous type... unless he can get his hands on a gun and get over his scruples, then all I see Mr. Carlson doing is taking a bullet for a girl far smarter than he is.

'The above biography is as written by chitoryu12. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: chitoryu12

Kills: None

Killed By: Sarah Atwell

Collected Weapons: Brass knuckles (Assigned Weapon)

Allies: None

Enemies: None

Mid-game Evaluation: Chris was awoken on the East Beach by a gunshot, immediately panicking and hiding in some tall grass when he spotted Bridget Connolly, Kimberly Nguyen, Steve Barnes, and others huddling nearby. After looking through his pack and arming himself with his brass knuckles, he crept closer to them. While he never figured out that Kimberly had been shot and they were now trying to bandage up the wound, he was able to get close enough to see blood on the sand and immediately left before anyone spotted him. He never remembered that he had accidentally left his backpack from the school trip on the beach.

A short while later, he found himself at the Mansion. He read his map and decided that the town to the north would be a good place to find shelter and friends, then tried to enter the mansion for a shady place to rest and continue studying the map. However, he heard Peter Siu and Eiko Haraguchi talking to Hermione Miller inside, and after hiding outside made the decision to leave.

In the South-Eastern Woods in the evening, he came across Phillip Ward and Marybeth Witherspoon talking in a small clearing. Hiding in the bushes, he had just enough time to recognize Phil when Maria Graham came bounding into the woods, almost stepping on him. As he watched the ensuing interaction, Phil was overcome with rage and attacked Maria, nearly beating her to death. Feeling protective, Chris ran out and punched Phil in the face at the same time as Maria punched him, knocking him off. During the melee, Francine Moreau appeared and while watching, Marybeth shoved her into the fight. When Maria fired her flare gun at Phil, the flare bounced off and landed on Francine, incinerating her. Escaping the fire, the group scattered.

After sleeping for the night at the Infirmary, Chris vowed not to get involved with any more groups. This vow would quickly be broken when he arrived in the Town Center on the morning of Day 2 and saw Maria again, slightly burnt and missing her shirt. When she collapsed in a group consisting of Zach Jamis, Samya Franklin, Dustin Royal, Simon Fletcher, Ash Morrison, and Cassidy Wakemore, he went to check that Maria was all right. Out of concern for her, he agreed to follow them to shelter.

After spending Day 2 walking, they reached the rec center in the Residential District at night. As everyone slept or talked, Mizore Soryu arrived and began painting in the restroom and Chris tried to talk to Simon. However, he accidentally fell asleep and awoke just before the announcements. Maria and Dustin had gotten lost following the group and after a failed attempt at sex, made their way to the rec center at this time. When the announcement told the group of Maria's killing of Francine, she immediately freaked out and began crying and contemplating suicide. The group suddenly broke apart in the stress, everyone going their own way. After staying long enough to comfort Maria, Chris left.

Chris spent the rest of the day in a daze, trying to reach the mountain. Forgetting to use his compass until the morning of Day 4 left him walking in circles in the forest, and eventually he reached the mountain. While resting on a boulder he angrily threw a stone at a nearby camera and kicked the boulder down the mountain. Sarah Atwell, his prom date, and Alice Boucher appeared, with Sarah having gone insane and believing SOTF to be a scripted TV show and Alice her assistant. Believing that he was wrecking props, Sarah took Alice's gun (previously stolen from Brock Mason's corpse) and tried to shoot him. However, leaving the safety on gave Chris enough time to dodge and charge at her.

Disarming her, Chris tackled her and put the gun to her head, but was unable to pull the trigger. Taking advantage of this, Sarah stabbed him in the chest with a hidden scalpel. He had enough strength to remove the scalpel and come after her, but only a few steps later collapsed and bled to death, his body being pushed down the mountain by Alice.

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Christopher, in chronological order.

The Past:
 * The Long Walk Home

Pre-Game:
 * Ice Trail
 * Eating Out (Cleanly)
 * Homework: Last Resort of the Bored
 * What Goes Up...
 * A Flock of Cuckoos
 * Roses Without Thorns
 * Toppings
 * Pursuit and Retrieval
 * Lunch for the bored and hungry.
 * some "light" reading
 * I Wish She Was Here...
 * Closing Time

V4:
 * D-Day
 * Don't go breaking my heart...
 * Woods of Paranoia
 * Wakey wakey, sunshine...
 * Ten Shades of Gray
 * The Moon is Laughing at You
 * A Moment Remembered

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Christopher Carlson. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * Chris had a lot behind him, from pregame. As his handler's only character, he received a lot of attention and benefited from it. His on-island story was a bit loose and unfocused, mostly because he kept drifting between major scenes, but it was very satisfying to have a good culmination to his and Sarah's pregame relationship, one that actually resulted in a big change for her. I think Chris had the makings of a big character, and the only reason he's not a bit better known is that his luck with threads was pretty shaky. - MurderWeasel